Seekers Among Us
by The Fish with no pen
Summary: There once was a time, when the war was still just a grumble that most of Cybertron could ignore, when there were Seekers who were part of the Autobot faction. Most just don't know about this, or never wondered what became of that small group.
1. Misconception

**Warnings:** Unbeta'd, weirdness, mentions of experimentation, hinting at torture, did I mention the oddness of this?

**Notes:** I believe I can blame this all on the various bunnies and stories involving some Autobots either being flightless kin to Seekers, or actually Seekers who willingly reformatted for their own safety.

**Disclaimer:** If I owned I would be rich and older then what I am. This is all for fun and no money is being made from this.

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There was a widely spread misconception that all Seeker builds were inherently Decepticon. The idea gaining credibility with many at the sight of the air force that was held within the Decepticon ranks, and the few flyers within the Autobots being mostly of the triple changer variety. It made any talk of possible Autobot seekers hard to get past the stance that a seeker would never be an Autobot.

It was why Prowl had given up slowly introducing such an idea when Sentinel Prime still held the Matrix of power.

Even when Ratchet started in on him and several others as they went in for check ups and various glitch related concerns. The tactician having vorns of practice in ignoring the now familiar lecture on the longer they remained as they were, the less likely their 'annoying but manageable' glitches would remain such. The affects of such being more noticeable in the ones who did not want anyone to even think they had a connection to Seeker society, namely the ones who declined a Praxian like build when being reformatted.

"And what the frag are all of you going to do if that Trine protocol acts up at the wrong time or with the wrong mech?"

Most of them had been too young to have worried about such when they were asked, and so just shrugged it off. Now they just became careful in interactions, some going to the extreme of avoiding any known trine mates to keep the charade that much longer. Stressful, but necessary when the protocol acted around a mech that one normally did not associate with in a manner outside of their missions and duties. Much in the same way that a few had even had their designations changed or main program changed to throw off any suspicion. Some becoming a completely different mech then they had been when they were found in that holding cell.

It was reckless and slowly edging towards dangerous in terms of their health, as Ratchet was wont to remind the small group. Yet, it was an unspoken agreement to keep up the charade for the war effort. Many set and determine to keep their original formatting a secret until the war was over, if they lived to the end of the war, and the consequences of such actions ignored.

Though, deep down they knew it was mostly out of the fear of the fallout if it was ever known there were Seekers amongst those who sported the red brand.


	2. Backstory

**Warnings:** Unbeta'd, weirdness, mentions of experimentation, hinting at torture, did I mention the oddness of this?

**Notes:** I believe I can blame this all on the various bunnies and stories involving some Autobots either being flightless kin to Seekers, or actually Seekers who willingly reformatted for their own safety.

**Disclaimer:** No own no sue.

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Red Alert actually remembered far more clearly then most of his fellow seekers in hiding, about those times when they were captured, grounded, and tucked away in that dark room until Shockwave needed one of them to study. He believed it was just the luck of being a junior medic and the only one who had any real medical training amongst those below and thus was kept more or less coherent and free of most cpu shattering experiments. It was easier to have him fixing and hoping he didn't mess up in the more complicated procedures, then to send a Decepticon medic to attempt dealing with the volatile seekers.

He still felt the echoes of the memory loops every now and then of desperately trying to keep someone online when their injuries had far outstripped his abilities, making him learn as he went to save them. Failure was common, and even his successes he worried about, as he could never truly tell if it did more harm then good in the long run. Curling up into a miserable ball in the corner of his cell and just wishing at times that someone like Evac or Crossline were there to help with their more experienced hands. The larger models he felt in his spark would have been able to fight back more when they came to take someone for the tests that would finally deactivate them.

It meant he was the first to learn through the various overheard conversations about the 'next step', being planned, and the fact that the pressure and threats of decimation had made their kind outside finally give in to Megatron's demands. At least the ones who did not freely join that is at the beginning. He still felt the horror and panic as freshly as back then when the first of their quickly diminishing numbers was taken away; and a strange mech was brought back. Until they actually ilooked/i and knew that this ground based mech was one of their own. He had been one of the last ones taken to be remodeled, thus he was in stasis when a rescue came. The story of a small group of Autobots stumbling upon the small lab by accident when looking for a rumored prison camp; though, if it was true or not they were not going to question it too much out of relief.

Even as they had to deal with the well known CMO who could see through the remodeling and began to try and unravel the programming that had been installed as a failsafe by Shockwave; to keep them from reversing the remodeling without any ill effects. By then the war was in full effect and it was too chaotic to proceed with regaining their old frames back, then Sentinel fell and a new Prime appeared. The chance to change back started to slip away, as by that time there were no true fliers on the Autobot side and it was considered just the way of the war. The ideas and conceptions of each faction too ingrained to be easily changed, not with how a great many things had been.

By now it was too much of a gamble to test that 'Autobot Code' and letting them find out there were Seekers among them.


	3. Inklings

**DISCLAIMER:** No own no sue, yes?

**NOTES:** I'm starting to think this is more of a series of related introspection, and less of a story, story.

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He was never really one to question and wonder about the odd habits of those around him. Even in the almost claustrophobic living conditions being endured on the Ark with the arrival of new mechs, and thus making living space a precious commodity. So it was a bit startling to his own cpu when he found himself wondering and observing the strangeness that seemed to center around a certain group.

It wasn't anything really universe shattering, and some of it could be logically blamed on several having spent so many human years working together on this planet. Yet it still niggled at the back of his processors like a stray data thread trying to fit into a program that was not being found. The odd thought compounding the first time he noticed an odd sort of avoidance that happened when that group and the seekers met on the battle field. Both sides seeming to do all they could to not be facing one another in combat if it can be helped, and doing so in ways to make it not seem like such. A very odd sort of thing, as it was not just a select group of seekers that attempted to avoid strafing an area that held that group, but all of them that did so. Causing for odd sorts of rivalries in battle partners to crop up.

The one time he had wondered about such out loud, one of the original Ark members had just paused and shrugged, saying it just had always been as such. After the first initial skirmish when it looked like Starscream and his trine had stalled for some reason when they had swept the battlefield. Though it had quickly passed and was just forgotten about mostly.

That answer had actually made him wonder even more, especially when the odd story of the one time the security director Red something or other, had suffered a processor error due to sever damage to his cpu, and the events involving the seeker Starscream not really taking advantage of the injured mech. At least not in a way that would have really been beneficial to the Air Commander, despite the normal brilliance displayed by that one outside of his antagonizing Megatron. The off colored jokes of a past relationship had been dismissed quickly in his musing, as that wouldn't explain why the reluctance was seen with many and not just those two. Especially, as the Second in Command was another one of the autobots who was avoided by the seekers and in turn attempted to avoid them unless absolutely necessary, and with out any undue force.

It was odd, but he did not have all the facts to even think of what that could truly mean. For now he would just attempt to compile a list of the mechs, and figure out which one would be willing to enlighten him with the right price offered.


End file.
